Both in the field and in the lab, participants frequently cooperate, despite the fact that the situation can be modelled as a simultaneous, symmetric prisoner's dilemma. This experiment manipulates the payoff in case both players defect, and explains the degree of cooperation by a combination of...

The market for law professors fulfils the conditions for a hog cycle: in the short run, supply cannot be extended or limited; future law professors must be hired soon after they first present themselves, or leave the market; demand is inelastic. Using a comprehensive German dataset, we show that...

Regulation is almost a synonym for public law. Government, relying on its sovereign powers, intervenes into freedom for the sake of social betterment. Reality less and less coincides with this traditional picture. Regulation is increasingly replaced by private or hybrid governance, i.e., by...

The standard tool for analysing social dilemmas is game theory. They are reconstructed as prisoner dilemma games. This is helpful for understanding the incentive structure. Yet this analysis is based on the classic homo oeconomicus assumptions. In many real world dilemma situations, these...

Anti-trust cases more often than not hinge upon market definition. The anti-trust authorities use standardised tests for the purpose, like the small but significant and nontransitory increase in price test prevalent in US law. These tests are often read as neoclassical economics, watered down to...

In some industries, monopoly is natural. One provider can serve the relevant demand cheaper than two or more firms. If the monopoly is not contestable, i.e. not controlled by a credible threat of entry, regulation is necessary. The essential facilities doctrine is one such regulatory tool. It...

Policymakers all over the world claim: no innovation without protection. For more than a century, critics have objected that the case for intellectual property is far from clear. This paper uses a game theoretic model to organise the debate. It is possible to model innovation as a prisoner's...